If you have young kids, or are planning to have children someday, the same thoughts may have crossed your mind:

What in the world will my kids think about my hair? What will I tell them?

I have two young boys. My eldest is six years old and entering first grade this year. My youngest is three (I started wearing hair immediately after his birth).

Both are into superheroes and riding bikes and getting dirty and boogers.

Typical boy stuff.

Both have also seen me with and without my hair.

They’ve seen me put it on.

They’ve seen me take it off.

They’ve seen my scalp. Both bare coming out of the shower, and covered in glue.

Surprisingly, it’s my three year old that is the most inquisitive. And by inquisitive, I mean I can only think of one question in recent memory about it.

I was finishing up getting ready one weekend morning, and he was in the bathroom with me.

He looked at my hair topper (which was in my hand) and asked, “is that your hair?”

“Yep,” I told him. “Where’s your hair?”

He pointed to his head.

That’s it. End of story.

For now, they don’t know anything differently.

I’m not sure they’ve made any connection that I have “other hair”, while Daddy and they don’t. It simply hasn’t crossed their minds.

To them, this is just something that their Mama does. Maybe they think all mothers wear hair. Maybe they think all mothers plop their hair on their little heads and take a pic.

My six year old:

His brother:

They’re still young, so they haven’t had a ton of opportunity to interact with others kids in their homes yet. Meaning, they haven’t experienced other mothers.

But I don’t think they are thinking this way quite just yet – they aren’t at the point where they are comparing and questioning.

I’m sure the day will come.

In fact, I can imagine it likely happening when my parents are visiting. I’m sure my mother will yell from the bathroom one day, “I’ll be right out, I’m just finishing getting ready.”

And one of those dear boys will innocently ask if she has to put on her hair.

My mom will be super-confused, and I’ll need to figure out how I want to handle that. Quite honestly, I don’t care who knows, but so few people DO know that now it’s just kind of weird.

Does that make sense?

(New readers, one point of clarification: exactly two people know I wear hair. My husband and one good friend. Ok, well two people and all of you.)

As I imagine it right now—and this can always change—I’ll sit with the boys and tell them that some things we can talk about as a family in our home, but we don’t talk about it with other people.

They’ll look at me in understanding with solemn faces, until one of them (probably the impish little one) will start to giggle.

And they’ll look at each other.

And that little one will loudly say “FART!”.

Because we have a whole list of topics we can talk about at home with our family, but not in front of other people. And at three years old, talking about farting is hilarious and if he has any opportunity to say it, he’ll take it. The hair conversation will give him the perfect opening.

But I’ll have to say, “Yes, talking about Mama’s hair is just like talking about farting”.”

That’s just how you level with a kiddo. Or maybe it’s just how I level with my kiddos.

That’s about as far as I’ve gotten in my thinking about this—that first conversation. I’m sure there will be more to come after that.

I’d love to hear how you plan to address this with your kids. What about with daughters? I’m all boy, so thinking about it as it relates to daughters is foreign to me, and maybe a different conversation.

You all might remember my post about using glue to secure my toppers–it’s a great way to keep them from shifting and to prevent bald spots.

Really, it’s a super-strong hair gel called Got2B Spiking Gel. I have both the 6 oz. tubes for everyday use as well as the travel size.

How often do I use this glue?

EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The worst part of my hair loss is about an inch back from my hairline, and that’s where I want my toppers to feel the most secure. And since my loss is bad here, I can’t place a clip there–there’s too little for it grab onto.

I had to get crafty.

You can read more about how I make this glue work in my first post, but basically you place a pea-sized amount of product on your head (try to move as much of the hair as possible out of the way…if it gets on your bio hair, no biggie. It washes right out during your next shower). Just let it sit for a few minutes exposed to air so that it gets tacky, then place your topper on.

When I was wearing my Noriko Milan, the glue used to hit the very front of my piece, right at the poly rim.

Which was perfect.

You want the majority of the glue to hit here because if it gets on the mono are (the meshy part), it will seep through to the hair on the other side.

This isn’t TOO big a deal as you can’t really see it, but it will cause your helper hair to stick to itself and feel crunchy.

With my current daily piece, Top Secret, where I need to place the glue doesn’t quite hit the poly rim.

I needed to improvise.

Glue is the perfect solution for me, but I can’t have glue seeping through my piece every single day.

My solution?

Would you believe packing tape??

I use Scotch Ultra Clear Packing Tape. The only reason why I chose this one is because I needed a new tape FAST, and this one was one-day shipping on Amazon.

Here’s my beloved tape:

You’d think any tape could work, and maybe several do, but I tried this Wexford tape before and it was super-slippery and the glue couldn’t adhere very well.

Something about the texture of the tape just didn’t work with the glue…but since this tape works fabulously on boxes, it’s been relegated to pack-n-ship duty. 🙂

All I do is attach the tape to the poly rim, and press it down towards the back of the piece.

The tape does not stick very well to the mono top area at all – so I don’t think this method would work very well on other types of construction without a poly strip.

(If you have an ideas on how to make that work, let us know!)

The back of the tape kinda hangs freely, but that’s ok since it’s secured at the front – the grip is pretty strong on the poly.

This creates a nice barrier between the glue and my piece. I can get the glue all over this area if I want, and it won’t seep through to the other side.

Win!

Full-disclosure: sometimes when you are pressing the piece to your head in the morning, it does sound a bit crinkly. But, no one’s patting your head…right?

It’s a small price to pay, in my opinion. 🙂

The glue will catch 99% of the glue, but depending on where I place the glue, sometimes I miss the mark. Operator error.

Oh, and one 2″ piece of tape will last me the whole time in-between washes, so two weeks. It gets a bit grimy-looking, but…eh.

Not too shabby!

Do you have any topper hacks to share?

P.S. Are you in Instagram? I’ve been having a lot of fun talking to everyone in-between posts – chat with me here: @hopeandmane.

Even though I only have about four strands left, I still like to find fun products to use on my natural hair.

My hair-BFF, Kellie, who used to blog about hair loss at Out of Thin Hair (Kellie, when are you starting it back up??), told me about Function of Beauty. Plus, she gave me $5 off (and I’m passing it on to you, too!).

Function of Beauty is a sulfate-free, 100% happiness guaranteed shampoo and conditioner company that allows you to personalize the formulation to best suit your own hair.

Their motto: Shampoo + conditioner as individual as unique as you.

I’m digging it!

You build your own hair profile that takes into account your hair’s current state: its type, structure and moisture level.

Then, you select five hair goals.

Want more shine?

More moisture?

More body?

Anything your heart desires, Function of Beauty can provide.

Well, almost anything.

This will not help hair loss, meaning, it is non-medicated and can’t help with shedding hair or regrowing it. This is purely for the more fun aspects of hair care. 🙂

Once you’ve chosen your hair goals, you get to pick the fragrance, fragrance intensity and product color (or go dye-free!).

The best part? Your name gets printed on the bottles.

Look!

As someone who is a sucker for anything personalized or monogrammed, I knew I had to try it out.

(Just sitting here typing out this post at work,–ha! Don’t tell my boss, please–in my view I can see my “L” water cup as well as my right-hand rings with each of my kids’ names on them. Those of you with eagle eyes may have noticed the giant “E” letter I have in my kitchen/desk area at home…you can sometimes see it when I film videos there. You know, when you aren’t concentrating on the mess…)

How cute are these bottles?

I chose purple for the shampoo since that’s my favorite color. I loved how refreshing the mint color is, so I went with that for the conditioner.

My Function of Beauty hair profile is:

Straight (yep)

Fine (duh)

Oily – I’m not sure if it’s really oily per se…I wash every other day with no problem with excessive oiliness in between.

The hair goals I went with are:

Strengthen

Volumize

Nourish Roots – I thought both this and the “Soothe scalp” goal would be good for hair loss (clips can be poke-y sometimes)

Soothe Scalp

Anti-aging

It took about 10 days from the time of order to arrival at my front door. Not too bad, but I was chomping at the bit to get my package!

I’ve been pleased with the Function of Beauty formulation so far – and I love looking at my bottles in the shower in the mornings. It makes getting up for work that much easier. 🙂

My hair definitely has a bit more shine to it. Also, whereas before I could get away with washing every other day, now I could do it every 3rd day.

Hmm, did I say that right?

So, if I wash my hair on Monday, I can now last until Thursday before I really need to wash it again.

Because the FoB formulation is specific to my hair’s needs, the oils are better-balanced on my scalp.

If you want to try out Function of Beauty, check them out here. You’ll save $5 off your order, and I’ll get $5 towards my next purchase, too. 🙂

I got the 8 oz. bottles, and they cost $36. Definitely pricier than a drugstore product and more on-par with salon quality.

Being able to pick my hair needs and fragrance and stuff is worth it to me.

Oh, and here’s a pic of me and my hair twin, Kellie (who I mentioned above). We both wear Jon Renau’s 10H16, so we had to snap a pic when we met up here in Texas last year. I’m wearing my daily love, Top Secret by Jon Renau. and she’s rocking Top Wave.

So, who am I? I’m just a gal losing her hair, who was tired of searching endlessly for information about this condition. I was desperate to connect with somebody (anybody!) who could relate. Basically…I’m just like you.
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